Access to Advancement, Part 1: MIND Alliance
Allison Dunne: The high school students are in a corporate classroom of sorts, doing hands-on experiments. The "crinkling" sound you hear is a plastic sandwich bag in which silly putty comes to life, thanks to a few ingredients, and some kneading.
(...crinkling baggie sound...)
Mona McKinney: Wow.
Allison Dunne: Pretty cool hands-on experiments, yeah?
Mona McKinney: Yeah.
Allison Dunne: Does this make you want to learn more about science or anything?
Mona McKinney: Yes, yes.
Allison Dunne: Like what?
Mona McKinney: Like what's this stuff that's in it that's making it turn to putty.
Allison Dunne: That was high-school senior Mona McKinney, participating in the experiments with polymers at the ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company in Annandale, New Jersey. The field trip to ExxonMobil was the culmination of MIND Alliance's week-long summer institute for high-school students, and a way to show some science careers in action, as students visited a robotics lab and a fish lab.
High-school junior Shellisa Bell also appreciated the hands-on work during the trip.
Shellisa Bell: I think the fact when we made the silly putty and the snow, that was real interesting to know that science is more than just sitting, doing some experiments, and stuff like that, that it could really be like a real fun, hands-on type of occupation.
Allison Dunne: Clearly, the chance to get hands-on experience got some of these students hooked.
The MIND in MIND Alliance is: Minority students with disabilities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM; and the alliance is between Hunter College in Manhattan, part of the City University of New York, and Southern University at Baton Rouge in Louisiana.
Elizabeth Cardoso: Well, there's been research done with minority women in, in the field, but there hasn't been any research done with students with disability from minority backgrounds. And we thought this was a great opportunity to be able to reach out to those groups.
Allison Dunne: That's Dr. Elizabeth Cardoso, an associate professor of counseling at Hunter College's School of Education. She's also the principal investigator for MIND Alliance, funded by the National Science Foundation. She says there are predominantly three populations being served by this alliance - African-American and Native-American populations out of Southern University at Baton Rouge, and African-American and Latino populations out of Hunter.
Dr. Cardoso says the overall goal of MIND Alliance is to get minority students with disabilities interested in science...then get them into STEM majors and careers. She says, based on this goal, she and others leading MIND Alliance came up with various projects.
Elizabeth Cardoso: The MIND Alliance is comprised of all these little projects that hopefully will lead to disbursing information to the public at some point. We do have a Web site we developed that's based on, for the students with disabilities. There's different components - one for parents, one for teachers, one for counselors, and one for high-school students.
Allison Dunne: 31 students attended Hunter's first MIND Alliance summer high-school institute in 2009, and of these, 13 are young women. Most of the teens came from public high schools in the inner city of Newark, New Jersey, near New York City.
MIND Alliance zooms in on possible careers, and, apart from the field trip, the summer institute was filled with guest presenters from various STEM fields or academia. There were classes ranging from physics to biomedical engineering to biology. Shellisa Bell, who attends Newark's University High School, says she really got into a session that looked at genetics, where she took her own DNA. And, she picked up some other information.
Allison Dunne: What kind of messages have you gotten here?
Shellisa Bell: That you could learn a lot if you go to college. College is very important and that you could get really far.
Allison Dunne: Do you have intentions of going to college?
Shellisa Bell: Yes.
Allison Dunne: Before college, though, MIND Alliance will pair these high-school students with mentors in their communities, mentors with science backgrounds. This mentor matching happens after the summer institute. Dr. Cardoso says the mentors will help students explore areas of interest, and look into which colleges would be appropriate fits.
I asked a few of the girls during the Institute how important it is for them to see other minority women with disabilities successful in STEM, to which University High School senior Mona McKinney responded:
Mona McKinney: It's important for me because, like, I see a educated woman that's taking herself further in life, and doing what she loves to do. And, to me, that's like a role model to me because like I know if she can do it, then I can do it.
Allison Dunne: And Shellisa Bell shared her take on role models:
Shellisa Bell: It's important to me because society make it seem like men could do certain, stuff like that, and like it's not very, it's not very ordinary that you see a female in the field of science or that you see females going to school for a whole lot of things, and successful, and who have disabilities or have problems or who have struggles. For a woman, it make you look like, dang, like, that's what's up, like you really, you really see a female doing that, and she, she's just making it easier for every-, paving the way for everybody else.
Allison Dunne: MIND Alliance has students for two years, on both the high-school and college levels.
And both programs are intended for students with a range of disabilities. However, in the first year of the program, it just so happened the high-school students all have learning disabilities.
Before attending the week-long college-level institute, students took a battery of tests, to assess where they stood when it came to not only interests, but in such areas as self-esteem, and self-advocacy. The high-school students did the same.
It's this information, says Dr. Elizabeth Cardoso, that will help mentors best assist the students. She says mentors can help students believe in themselves, and help them envision going into STEM.
Pritul Bhuiyan, who studies statistics at Hunter College, attended the college-level institute, and is a mentor outside the program. She said some of what she learned day one of the institute she can definitely use:
Pritul Bhuiyan: Like, the most important thing in today's presentation was self-advocacy. I actually, part-time, I, I'm like a mentor to high-school students who are making the transition from high school to college, students with disabilities. And, and a lot of what I tell them is about self-advocacy, because I feel that, that's the most important thing you need to know when you're going to college. So, that, and this just enhanced it more for me. I feel like I could go back and like teach them more about it.
Allison Dunne: Bhuiyan has spina bifida, a birth defect of the spinal cord. As a result, she has mobility impairment from the waist down, and uses a power wheelchair.
Dr. Cardoso says most of the mentors for college-level students will be in New York City, as that's where most of the students are. She said some could be in the community, and some will likely be college professors or graduate students from the City University of New York
Fei-Yan Mock, nicknamed, "Pepsi", also came to the summer college institute. She spent her summer of 2009 doing research in a lab at a college of medicine for a National Institutes of Health science program. She has polio, and uses a wheelchair for mobility. She says accessibility in science labs poses some problems, such as reaching chemicals because the shelves are too high.
Pepsi: One of my obstacles was just simply getting a chemical or, or, or just even turn the water, but, I have a wonderful staff in my lab and they help me out a lot. But, but that also, kind of, I guess, make me question what my future path will be like as a graduate student in science, so.
Allison Dunne: Because of accessibility?
Pepsi: Yes, because of accessibility.
Allison Dunne: And how important does Pepsi think it is for a woman with a disability in STEM to have a role model who is also a woman with a disability?
Pepsi: I think it's very important, especially, there are not enough women in science, and there are not enough, I think, just students with disabilities in science, period.
Allison Dunne: August Coleman is part of the MIND Alliance program. She's an Army veteran, and served in Iraq in 2003, as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. She worked with psychiatric patients there, and says it was this work, along with a job after Iraq, that has her pursuing nursing. She lives in the projects on Manhattan's Upper West Side, and attends Hostos Community College in the Bronx.
August Coleman: As of right now, I'm taking courses in psychology as well as biology and anatomy and physiology, and introductory into chemistry.
Allison Dunne: She says the courses are tough. She has trouble memorizing and organizing, because of her traumatic brain injury that resulted from the blasts in Iraq. She also has post-traumatic stress disorder, and cannot tolerate crowded areas. Coleman, who is a single parent, says she did get some help before going to school.
August Coleman: Once I started school, I, from going to speak with counselors at the VA hospital - they assisted me a lot with getting organized before I went in. And I set me a schedule, made sure I cooked for my daughter, so I have time to eat, bathe, then after that I study. I pretty much had to study every night so I can have the weekends.
Allison Dunne: Dr. Cardoso, who is also a licensed psychologist, says the program has already enjoyed small measures of success. For example, on the college level, she says students were looking for internships in the sciences just after the institute ended.
As for greater measures of success, Dr. Cardoso believes there will be many.
Elizabeth Cardoso: Success can be viewed as the number of students that we actually recruit, and the number of students that actually come to the Alliance. Success could be that they start to take more science courses. Success could be then they start declaring their majors in the sciences and graduating with a degree in science. Success can be that they go and find employment in the sciences, or they go on to graduate school, either a master's degree, or a Ph.D.
Allison Dunne: "Pepsi" - the woman who worked in a science lab for a summer, was born in China, where she contracted polio at 8 months old. It was contracting polio, she said, plus her mother recently having breast cancer, that pushed her into wanting to do scientific research. She's a senior at Hunter College, majoring in biochemistry and classical studies, and does hope to pursue a doctorate degree in biochemistry. Apart from personal experiences, she says a high-school physics teacher inspired her to want to be a scientist
Pepsi: I always thought that only boys can go in physical science, so, but it's not really true. She said that any woman can do it. And then another fortunate thing is that my mom always pushed me to work very hard in math. So I was very good at math, so I think also that helps me a lot in terms of like doing chemistry and physics.
Allison Dunne: Richa Nayyar is a sophomore at Queens College. She says courses during her earlier education paved the way for her interest in the sciences.
Richa Nayyar: I got interested in science when I got into sixth grade, when I took science. It was kind of interesting to me, like learning about the human body and how it works, and my teacher explaining it to me.
Allison Dunne: Richa said she liked science so much, she took more science classes in high school.
When I met her during the Institute, Richa said she had hoped to learn more about careers at MIND Alliance, and was looking forward to the session on forensic science. She said she envisions herself working alone, in a lab, as she cannot tolerate social situations for very long. In addition, she has a physical disability of unknown origin, one that she describes as physical weakness. For example, she cannot lift heavy objects or play sports.
Richa Nayyar: I'm actually trying to find out what I want to do because I'm not sure. I like sciences, but I don't know specifically what I want to do.
Allison Dunne: Richa Nayyar is one of fifteen women enrolled in the college-level MIND Alliance program. There are twenty men.
Another of the women is Carmen, who says she's doing MIND Alliance because of her return to science. She also wants to show younger people that someone like her, one who is older and has been through a lot, can pursue a path in STEM, that it's never too late.
Carmen: I've really struggled a lot. I've gone through a lot. I've been homeless, not for a long duration, but I was homeless. So I've had illness, I've had times of true wellness, that no one would imagine I had this diagnosis. I've had hospitalizations. And I take medication. I have therapists. And so, for me, not only to be able to pursue sciences again, but just to be able to go back to school, to feel comfortable, to feel supported is what I wanted to convey, and being truthful. And I don't tell, there are people that know me that don't know this information.
Allison Dunne: Carmen was diagnosed roughly ten years ago with bipolar disorder, with, at times, schizophrenic features. This, she notes, followed many depressions and breakdowns. She has her undergraduate degree in biology, though did not head for a biology career, she says, because of her illness. Instead, she went to nursing school in New York City, and became a registered nurse. However, she says she needs more of a challenge, and is attending Hunter College part-time. Finances are an issue, so she takes one class per semester. Next up is chemistry. She says if she can get through that, she'll pursue something in the so-called hard sciences, perhaps something in neurology.
Carmen calls herself a professional volunteer, and it was during one of her volunteer projects, she learned something valuable, something she took with her to MIND Alliance.
Carmen: I was painting over in [New] Jersey for Habitat for Humanity and I was nervous about getting it right or whatever. And he, and the guy said, you know, 'Do it afraid, do it afraid'. You may be scared to death, and after awhile you'll be walking along and you'll look back and say, I don't know how I ever thought I could never do it.
Allison Dunne: She says a program like MIND Alliance allows participants to "Do it afraid", but not alone.
Again, the MIND in MIND Alliance is: Minority students with disabilities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, an alliance between Hunter College in Manhattan, part of the City University of New York, and Southern University at Baton Rouge, in Louisiana.
For The Best of Our Knowledge, I'm Allison Dunne.